Hi T.,
I have a story that might make you feel better. Similar to you, I stayed home with my son for the first 13 months of his life and when I was 4 months pregnant I was offered an exceptional consulting position that I could not turn down (my family could also benefit from the money). I was just terrified to put him into a daycare setting and furthermore, I secretly looked down on parents that �stuck� their kids in daycare. I also didn�t have a good experience during my childhood� I know that can make these time extremely difficult!
I shopped around and interview about 20 daycare facilities near our house and picked one. They are nationally accredited for age appropriate academics, have viewing rooms for the parents, the building is safe, clean, and well maintained. Their doors are secured with electronic keypads, and can be opened only with a passcode, the teachers are never (or very rarely) alone with the children and I can honestly say that I would trust any one of them to personally care for my children unattended. All of the teaches are wonderful and some even go to classes on their own time to learn things for the kids i.e. Spanish and sign language.
When we went for the trial day, Tyler played and had a wonderful time because I stayed in the class to observe the interaction and talk with the teachers. The first �real� day, he screamed and cried� it was awful, I felt like I was abandoning him. By the third day, I waited in the observation room until he calmed down (about 15 minutes) and he just started to play. Prior to daycare, my son would get a little anxious around crowds, especially at family gathering where everyone wanted to hold and talk to him, he would either cry or want to be held by my husband or me. Within a month of daycare, he became this outgoing, overly friendly, wave and say �Hi� to everyone child. He started remembering his �Friends� names, talked about his day at school and using 3 words together to talk (14 Months), singing ABC�s and could count to 10. by 15 months, he was using a big boy cup, remember to put it in a �safe zone� so he didn�t spill, could dish up his own dinner served family style and when he was done, liked to carry his plate to the trash and scrape it clean� all things he learned in daycare. It is almost like the pier pressure helps the learning process.
When I stopped working for 3 months in May to have our second son, we made the decision to let him stay in school for 2 days a week over the summer. Keep in mind that this was financially taxing� so we did it strictly for him. He can count to ten in sign language, knows all of his colors in English and Spanish, knows the complete alphabet and can actually count objects up to five and knows the result of taking away or adding a teddy bear (addition and subtraction).
Daycare actually helped our little boy to become more outgoing and enhanced his educational process. I hope this helps ease your mind. Please let me know if you would like more information on the center that he attends.
Camp Fire USA's Child Development Center
2700 Meacham Boulevard, Fort Worth
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http://www.firsttexascampfire.org/WorkFamily.htm
Good Luck!
E.